Babenhausen

Infobox Ort in Deutschland
Art = Stadt
Name = Babenhausen
image_photo = Amhexenturm.jpg
image_caption = Witch's tower
Wappen = Wappen Babenhausen.jpg
lat_deg = 49 |lat_min = 58 |lat_sec = 0
lon_deg = 8 |lon_min = 57 |lon_sec = 0
Lageplan =
Bundesland = Hessen
Regierungsbezirk = Darmstadt
Landkreis = Darmstadt-Dieburg
Höhe = 127
Fläche = 66.87
Einwohner = 16170
Stand = 2006-12-31
PLZ = 64832
Vorwahl = 06073
Kfz = DA
Gemeindeschlüssel = 06 4 32 002
Gliederung = 6
Adresse = Rathaus
Marktplatz 2
64832 Babenhausen
Website = [http://www.babenhausen.de/ www.babenhausen.de]
Bürgermeister = Reinhard Rupprecht
Partei = CDU

Babenhausen is a town in the Darmstadt-Dieburg district, in Hesse, Germany.

Geography

It is situated on the river Gersprenz, 25 km southeast of Frankfurt, and 14 km west of Aschaffenburg. South of its general borders, the mountain range of the Odenwald is situated about 15 km away. The landscape is rather flat due to the landscape forming process of the Gersprenz and other small rivers. Some sections along the Gersprenz are set aside as nature reserves with valuable plants and animals, e.g. the white stork or the kingfisher. The forests in the municipal area are mostly pine woods on ice-age dunes with heath fields. The sandy soil is regionally famous for growing Asparagus.

History

The town of Babenhausen includes a medieval core with a castle (12-13th century), numerous old houses and a large part of the city wall (1445). Babenhausen was chartered as a town in 1295. It belonged first to the Lords of Hagen-Münzenberg and was – after the last male descendant of this family died - inherited by the Lords of Hanau in the 13th century. In 1458 a minor line of them (first called "Hanau-Babenhausen", later called "Hanau-Lichtenberg ") founded an earldom (they had received the title of "Graf" [Earl] in 1429) on its own within the town and its district. In 1736 the last of the family died and the two potential inheritors, the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt and the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel) nearly went into a war over this inheritance. It took 35 years to settle the conflict and to arrange a compromise under which the town of Babenhausen came to Hesse-Kassel. But this was soon revised by the territorial rearrangements during and after Napoleonic times: From the beginning 19th century Babenhausen belonged to Hesse-Darmstadt.

Politics

After the revision of districts and their borders in the state of Hesse in 1974 the following villages were added to the area of the town of Babenhausen.
#Harreshausen, a small village just one km away from Babenhausen. It has its own castle. At its edge, the "Schöne Eiche" ("beautiful oak"), the mother tree of all pyramidal oaks grafted from it, a variant of the pedunculate oak ("Quercus robur"), appeared as a mutation about 1600.
#Hergershausen, elected as the third most beautiful village in Hesse.
#Harpertshausen
#Sickenhofen
#Langstadt

The US military installation in Babenhausen, Babenhausen Kaserne, formerly home of the 41st Field Artillery Brigade, was closed and returned to the control of the German government in 2007.